Executive council in default: advice adjustment rates still unknown

August 25, 2009 1:27 PM

The lawyer of Aqualectra, VanEps Kunneman VanDoorne, sent a letter to the Executive Council (“BC”) yesterday, announcing that the company will institute legal proceedings this week already if there is no reply to the request of a rate increase for both water and electricity by 7.5 and 19.5% respectively.

The deadline was two weeks ago, but because Aqualectra Director Anthon Casperson learned that the Department of Economic Affairs (“DEZ”) and the Department of General and Legal Affairs “AJZ”) issued an advice of which the contents are not known to him, he waited with taking legal steps.

“The point is not the rules or the intentions of the persons concerned, but the lack of awareness of the negative consequences this has for the continued existence of the only water and electricity supply company in Curaçao”, according to Casperson in a presentation last week before the association of small and medium-sized enterprises Adeck, in which he also explained the plans for the future. “If we cannot make the necessary investments, this will affect the quality and reliability”, he explains. Also in 2007 and 2008 it came to legal proceedings won by Aqualectra. After the second proceedings, new resolutions were adopted by the BC, containing the procedures for adjustment of rates. In them, it is outlined that the adjustment process can take four weeks and that an adjustment can be made six times per year at the most.

Headquarters to former Amstel site

Aqualectra is presently preparing to move the headquarters to the site where the Amstel factory used to be located. The intention is that this is realized in 2015. Casperson: “The entire water and electricity net can then be directed by a new computerized system from the corporate headquarters at Nieuwe Havenweg. The incident room will also be located there.”

The company is in the process of a re-organization, which can be realized when the new plants have been completed and the installation in Mundo Nobo can close. Apart from the investments a cost-decreasing adjustment of the staff structure is also going to take place. Apart from a new management structure in which the number of Directors will be reduced from five to three, the company also wants to reduce the staff from 680 to between 500 and 550.

(Source: local newspaper “Antilliaans Dagblad” dated 25 August 2009)

August 25, 2009